Radiation emitting devices are generally known and can be used for radiation therapy for the treatment of patients. A radiation therapy device generally includes a gantry which is swiveled around a horizontal axis of rotation in the course of a radiation therapy treatment. A linear accelerator is located in the gantry for generating a high energy radiation beam for the therapy. This high energy radiation beam can be an electron beam or X-ray beam. During treatment, the radiation beam is directed towards a patient lying in the isocenter of the gantry rotation.
To control the radiation emitted toward a given object, a beam shielding device, such as a plate arrangement or a collimator, is typically provided in the trajectory of the radiation beam between the radiation source and the patient. A collimator is a computer-controlled mechanical beam shielding device which generally includes multiple leaves, for example, a plurality of relatively thin plates or rods, typically arranged as opposing leaf pairs. The plates are formed from a relatively dense and radiation impervious material and are generally independently positionable to size and shape of the radiation beam. These leaves move across the tissue being radiated, thus blocking out some areas and filtering others to vary the beam intensity and precisely distribute the radiation dosage.
A multileaf collimator (MLC) is an example of a multileaf beam shielding device that can accurately and efficiently adjust the size and shape of the radiation beam. The size and shape of a radiation beam is designed during the treatment planning process. This is useful for both intensity modulated radiation treatment (IMRT) and three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D CRT).
Traditional radiotherapy utilizes uniform beams of radiation, producing a uniform distribution of dose throughout the irradiated volume, which includes the target volume. This ensures the target is adequately covered, but does nothing to avoid often critical surrounding structures. With IMRT, the beams of radiation are made to be intentionally non-uniform. In this way the dose distribution can be carefully shaped to minimize radiation to surrounding structures.
Measurement unit efficiency is a commonly used measure of beam efficiency. The measurement unit (MU) efficiency is defined as the efficiency with which the incident radiation results dose being in absorbed in the target region of a patient. The consequence of low MU efficiency is an increase in leakage radiation that reaches the surrounding tissue of the patient.
There are several critical components of a successful IMRT program. The first is a process referred to as “inverse planning.” Inverse planning utilizes a mathematical algorithm to optimize the intensity of the various beams. This optimization is highly computer intensive.
The second critical process is to convert the intensity distributions obtained, often referred to cumulatively as a fluence map, into a series of MLC leaf movements. This is referred to as “leaf sequencing.” Many device-specific factors must be accounted for in this process. These factors include radiation leakage through and between the leaves, leaf speed, dose rate, and the “tongue-and-groove” effect.
IMRT can be performed either while the beam is on, which is referred to as dynamic MLC or DMLC delivery, or by turning the beam off while the leaves move to their next position, which is referred to as segmented MLC or SMLC delivery. The beam shielding device defines a field on the object to which a prescribed amount of radiation is to be delivered. The usual treatment field shape results in a three-dimensional treatment volume which includes segments of normal tissue, thereby limiting the dose that can be given to the target, such as a tumor. The dose delivered to the tumor can be increased and the treatment time decreased as the amount of dose delivered to the normal surrounding tissue is decreased. Although current leaf sequencing algorithms have reduced the radiation level reaching surrounding normal tissue somewhat as compared to traditional uniform beams of radiation, these leaf sequences have not provided optimal MU efficiency.